<p>My personal opinion is that people are getting tired of his speeches and now want more from him than rhetoric. I could get up and read his speeches, would that make me eligible?</p>
<p>People will now start turning him off due to the fact that we are getting closer to the general and asking for substance. It is like saying I love you, but never showing it, after awhile you won’t believe they know what love is except for the word.</p>
<p>Obama really should have waited until 12, he needs more experience. He was a senator for @ 1 yr., and his resume is too thin. I think Hillary who was being begged to run in 04 backed away for that exact reason. Good or bad she has more experience than Obama. She has had to explain alot more and has been vetted over every topic.</p>
<p>I have nothing against him, but I am tired of not hearing how to change it. Great example, bringing home the troops…great, but what will you do with the vacuum left in Iraq. What if the sens. vote no, then what will you do? Explain the whole plan, not just I will. State how the drawdown will occur, which branches will be removed and when. Is the guard going to come home first, are we going to rotate the ships out, will the AF fighters stop flying sorties?</p>
[quote]
“Everything about this statement implies that you believe he is either unqualified, incapable or undeserving.”</p>
<p>What makes him qualified and capable? Concrete examples no jingles please.[/qote]</p>
<p>Nothing. However, I’m not the one who implied that he wasn’t. At the moment I have no trust in the Republican party whatsoever and of the two Democratic candidates I far prefer Obama to Hillary for reasons stated before. (lack of desire to see the furtherance of a Bush/Clinton dynasty)</p>
<p>I can’t see myself voting for a third party candidate as that would for all intents and purposes be a vote for McCain. Therefore I support Obama. Truthfully until he dropped out of the race I favored John Edwards.</p>
<p>Okay, but that doesn’t excuse him. It is an issue he needs to answer, not well, Bush left me with this problem.</p>
<p>Obama is stating what he will do, if he feels that he can’t fix it, then say, I want to bring them all home in a year, but because of the vacuum that will create, we will need to start by doing XXXX.</p>
<p>That is not what he is saying, he is saying I will bring the troops home.
Would people follow him, if he said I would like to bring them home, but here is the problem, which is why Hillary is saying a slow draw down. How many people are out there believing that within a yr every soldier will be home? Many people believe he will do exactly that, yet there is no plan that he has brought forth to prove that he can do it. I see that promise as a political ploy and totally irresponsible to say to the public.</p>
<p>What has McCain done to clean up politics for that matter? We can plainly see what a rousing success McCain-Feingold has been. Heck, even McCain himself has tried to circumvent it.</p>
<p>Not sure what you mean, barrons, but I found the portion of the speech discussing his grandmother the most poignant part because it illustrates the struggle those of us who are minorities have felt even within our own families.</p>
<p>McCain Feingold was a horrible bill, I will give you that. He at lest tried to correct the situation, the problem that occurred with that bill was a cottage industry. Look at moveon.org they love the bill</p>
<p>McCain at least is against pork-barreling. Obama placed his own pork barrell interests in the last budget</p>
<p>The true problem is everytime the govt tries to fix a law they wrote, the situation gets worse not better.</p>
<p>Obama has the Obama-Coburn bill that exposes earmarks on his ‘clean up government’ page of his resume, which places him beyond Clinton, and at worst comparable to McCain.</p>
<p>And this ‘substance’ debate is silly, Hillary and Obama have the same beliefs, she just says she’ll fight for it, and he says he’ll bring people together to make it happen. She has spent more time in the senate and done less, but has the Clinton name. He is limited by only having 10 years in the government.</p>
<p>I agree with regard to universities giving money to politicians but I think further examination would reveal that many of these donors have given money to all three major campaigns so as to cover all their bases so to speak.</p>
<p>I suspect that these contributions are not from the organizations themselves but the employees of the organizations. When you as an individual contribute to a campaign you must list your employer. These contributions are probably the sum of all the contributions from the various employees.</p>
<p>Obama’s speech sounded great but he didn’t address what he needed to. Race is an issue in America? Thanks for that heads up Obama, nobody knew. Why don’t you try explaining why you went to this mans church for 20 years, knew what was going on, and decided to keep going? Try to convince me that his thought hasn’t, in some way, had an impact on yours.</p>
<p>Universities cannot, i believe, contribute to campaigns. I don’t think any nonprofits can. Obviously, then, as FF says, these are contributions by individuals, packaged by, well, whoever–since no real source is given beyond some internet alias, in order to be deceptive.</p>
<p>I have read the speech in its entirety and will watch it later tonight. I think it was brilliant and moving. Obama is intelligent, and it shows in his thinking and in how very clearly he communicates; he reminded me of a very inspiring professor or high school teacher. He walked us from the beginning of our country to now, while clearly explaining some of the reasons for our intolerance and suspicions and while insisting that we move ahead by deciding to reject our suspicions and working together. His scope was both broad (the past two centuries) and narrow (Ashley on the organizing team), public and personal. He sympathized with blacks and whites but didn’t let them off the hook. He denounced his pastor and clearly explained how very wrong Wright is not to temper his bitterness of past injustices with reasons for hope at how much our nation has healed. In essence he said that Wright’s perspective is trapped in the past and is no longer helpful for the present and future. He mentioned Ferraro but in effect said we are wrong to dwell on what she said or to think her a racist. He even gave a shout-out to conservatives. </p>
<p>All in all, a generous speech with near perfect pitch. If we can’t move beyond race in politics after this, I’m not sure that we deserve a president like him.</p>
<p>Personally, I have been disappointed and upset with him for staying at his church with a pastor who is obviously so politically angry and bordering on deranged at times. It doesn’t jive with what I thought I understood about Obama’s beliefs and aspirations. It was too hateful, too unpatriotic and too divisive.</p>
<p>Today it helped to hear about the history and context of the black church, that it is a place – like the barbershop, etc…-- where these types of issues are often passionately pronounced, one of the only places marginalized blacks could congregate historically and speak of these things. My take-away from the speech is that Obama takes the good from Wright’s sermons (his hope themes) and rejects the bitter, the anger and the divisiveness. Today he was able to clearly express the “hate the sin, love the sinner” concept that Christianity espouses… and also to draw in a central commonality of all the major faiths: be your brother’s keeper etc…</p>
<p>If he doesn’t win the nomination or the Presidency, I hope that at least we will see the racial themes of this campaign season and this speech as a turning point for healing. If permanent good (i.e. greater understanding among the races, a willingness to understand each other’s concerns, a promise to work on continued injustices) can come from the current confusion and animosity, then it will be worth all the millions of dollars.</p>
<p>Actually, the frantic chatter from conservatives trying to spin the speech as a failure gives me hope. Brit Hume’s comment on Fox that Obama was blaming whites was typical. They know they’ve been pwned.</p>
<p>So in the end, you are saying it is the conservatives and republicans who are not getting it. </p>
<p>Let’s say you are right…why don’t you read the NYT article today. They even said he didn’t do a good job. NYT is a left leaning paper, if they are agreeing with FOX, are they now conservatives?</p>
<p>The problem is he still didn’t give a strong enough answer for why he stayed…as a stated by someone that NYT interviewed. Had he stayed within the church for a couple of years, left 5-10 years ago, I believe people would be able to understand. Staying for 20, is something many people cannot grasp.</p>